


habits

by fadewords



Series: shitty hands club [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ableism, Autistic Jonathan Sims, Autistic Martin Blackwood, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, internalized ableism, jonathan sims has much less ambiguously bad hands, martin blackwood has ambiguously bad hands, or at least h/c-adjacent, other characters Feature but do not have major roles, what the fuck else is in here uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadewords/pseuds/fadewords
Summary: For most of Martin's life, his hands have been...well, kind of stubborn.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: shitty hands club [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636960
Comments: 62
Kudos: 636





	habits

**Author's Note:**

> i decided one night that i was gonna give martin (& jon, but especially martin) my dumb hands, and i wrote a bullet point hc post about it that lowkey turned into fic, and then that post turned into this, & now here we are! [jazz hands]
> 
> enjoy!

For most of Martin’s life, his hands have been...well, kind of stubborn.

(They got hurt, once or twice, and they healed—well, obviously they healed just fine, they _work_ and everything, just—they can be a bit stubborn now sometimes. About some things. Is all.)

Mostly about writing. His penmanship is awful. Everyone tells him so. Absolutely everyone, for absolute years.

His mother, especially. Chickenscratch, she calls it, til the day she dies, whether it’s the grocery lists he dashes off so he won’t forget the eggs (again), or the personal messages he takes extreme care to write neatly on her birthday cards (which she hardly glances at), or even the poems he’s forgotten to tuck away, regardless of whether they’re handwritten or typed. Chickenscratch, the lot of it.

He tries to improve it, of course. He just doesn’t have much luck.

Until one day he catches sight of someone else’s handwriting, all slanted and small and softly curved about the tails, and finds himself both admiring and jealous. It’s pretty, like a poet’s should be, and a lot nicer than his own handwriting, and he’d quite like to write like that, and….

And so he steals it.

He makes a conscious effort to write a bit smaller, a bit more slanted, curl the tails of his g’s and y’s and j’s. And keeps making that effort, over and over and over, until eventually it’s second-nature. And, sure, the end result isn’t _really_ like the handwriting he set out to copy—not anything like it at all, it’s more looping, more joined-up, halfway to cursive—but it’s still _nice_.

His mother disagrees.

But, he tells himself firmly. But she’s wrong. It _is_ nice. He likes it, and it looks good in his notebooks, and it’s readable and reasonably professional and therefore even though it’s obviously not _perfect_ it’s still pretty good. It is.

-

Jon disagrees.

He disagrees _very strongly_ , apparently, complains about it all the time when he thinks Martin can’t hear. Calls it careless, illegible, a _pain in the arse_ —but Martin hears _incompetent_ loud and clear. (He doesn’t hear _chicken scratch_ underneath it. He absolutely doesn’t, because he got over that years ago.)

 _Incompetent_ is dangerously close to _worth firing over_ , though, and Martin really, really, _really_ can’t afford to be fired. He needs this job, he needs this money, his mother (will never let him hear the end of it if) _needs_ that care—

So Martin works harder. He writes slower. (It’s aggravating, but he thinks of the impossible number in his bank account and of his mother’s shaking hands and of a thousand awful application forms and knows it’s well worth it.)

He makes sure his penmanship is perfectly legible and his spelling immaculate, so Jon can’t possibly gripe about it anymore.

He starts complaining about how slow Martin is with paperwork instead. (Of course he does, Martin thinks. He’s _Jon_. He’s not happy unless he’s got something to complain about, unless he’s making someone else feel small.)

(Martin isn’t exactly sure how _true_ the second half of that thought is, but it makes him feel a bit better, at least. Until it doesn’t.)

The second time Jon comments indirectly on his turnaround times—a compliment to Sasha, the next room over, about how _timely_ she is and how much he _appreciates_ that—Martin changes tactics. Picks up the pace again, and tries to stay at least moderately neat while he’s at it.

It works well enough, he thinks. (At least, Jon says nothing to his face about any drop in legibility, and Martin doesn’t _hear_ him saying anything to the others in the last few hours of the workday after he hands over the papers.) So that’s good. So Martin keeps at it.

It’s good. It’s fine.

It’s just…also a bit of a problem. Because—well. It’s not actually _that_ hard to write passably well when he’s in a rush (not when he’s _thinking_ about it, anyway), it’s fine, it’s doable, all that slowness before was just. Extra caution. Just Martin taking things to unnecessary extremes like he does, like he’s always done. (His mother is wrong about many things and he knows that, he does. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.)

So. So it’s _not_ that hard, really. It isn’t.

It’s just. Well.

It does make his hands complain a bit more, sometimes. Writing so much at such a rapid pace. They get all...cramped. Achey, sometimes. Which is annoying, and makes it harder to write nice, and it’s a whole stupid feedback loop and Martin hates it.

But he manages.

His hands complain a bit more, but Jon complains a bit less, so it’s—well worth it. Again. Anything to not be fired. (Anything to get that _look_ fewer times a day.)

-

Sometimes, when Martin’s hands complain in that sharp, cramped way, he shakes them out a bit. It usually helps. Bit of a reset button, and also it just kind of. Feels nice. The buzzing, afterwards. (The excuse to stim without seeming weird is _also_ nice, kind of a secret upside to the whole thing.)

But then one day Martin pauses in the middle of a frankly _unholy_ set of annotations to shake out his hands and he glances up for just a second and oh.

There’s Jon, a little ways away, staring at him with a very odd expression on his face, a very odd set to his shoulders. He seems— _uncomfortable_. (It’s the same expression he wears when Sasha accidentally brushes against him in the breakroom, or when Tim takes the teasing just a little too far.)

Martin drops his eyes to his papers, and then his hands to the desk, and then picks up his pen and gets back to work.

(It occurs to him, very abruptly, that he’s not entirely sure he remembers ever seeing anyone else fix cramps in one hand by shaking _both_ until they blur. Maybe that’s a bit weird after all.)

Martin takes to wringing his hands in his lap instead, after that. Facing away from Jon’s office, just in case.

-

Sometimes, when Martin’s hands hurt in a way that wringing won’t fix and that a quick s _ingle-handed_ shake doesn’t help either (in that annoying, deeper-seated aching sort of way that sends occasional needles through the _bones_ of his fingers more than the joints), he gets up and makes everyone tea.

It helps three ways: he gets to give his hands a rest, he gets to still feel useful as he does it, and he gets to hold something hot afterwards. (Sometimes that soothes the ache a bit. Sometimes makes it go away entirely. He’s not sure if it’s the heat, exactly, if that’s something that’s really meant to help, or if it’s the break in activity, or the distraction, or some combination of all three, or maybe just the placebo effect, but, well. Doesn’t really matter, does it? So long as it works. And it does, so.)

Martin makes it a habit, before too long. Sets timers on his phone, so it vibrates at regular intervals, reminding him to get up and make everyone tea (and get himself something to eat while he’s at it, or else he absolutely _will_ get wrapped up in research and forget).

Jon grumbles about the frequency of the tea breaks, at first, but Martin ignores him. He’s not doing anything wrong. Making the tea is _helpful_ , and not just for himself. And, and even if no one else appreciates the tea _really_ , even if they’re all secretly extremely annoyed with it, or, or indifferent to it (and they _aren’t_ ), that’s fine, too.

Jon doesn’t get to make him feel bad for looking after himself. He doesn’t.

So Martin ignores him.

And Jon stops after a while. (Martin suspects it’s mostly because he doesn’t really notice anymore. Too absorbed in his own work to do more than mutter the very occasional vague thanks at the soft _clink_ of a mug placed on his desk.)

Martin tries to feel pleased about this. Or at least indifferent, the same as Jon.

It mostly works.

-

Sometimes, when Martin’s hands don’t really hurt much at all, they’re still a bit stubborn.

They do idiot things, like drop pens and papers and tape recorders and mugs and _phones_ at the worst possible moments.

And embarrassing things too, like fail to open jars, and old tupperware containers, and soda cans, and certain brands of water bottles. Partly because they don’t _quite_ have the strength and partly because—well. Honestly it kind of hurts a bit, trying to open those things, some days.

It’s fine, though. He’s got workarounds.

There’s the hot water trick for jars, and a damp cloth does wonders for tupperware lids, and he uses his fingernails to break the tiny seals on water bottles. And he just. Doesn’t drink soda, unless it’s from a bottle. (In which case he breaks the seal with a fingernail, just like with water.)

And when all else fails (and sometimes even when it doesn’t), there _is_ the option, in the early days in the Archives, of letting Tim help.

Not _asking_ , mind. Letting. Because Tim offers, generally, when he sees Martin struggling with something. And he seems pleased on the rare occasions Martin actually accepts.

He likes to help. (Martin knows the feeling, which is really the only reason he ever _does_ accept. Because then he’s helping Tim too, kind of. And it’s mutual. And it’s nice.)

Still, though. Martin usually turns him down, and always tries not to be seen fighting with something so _stupid_ as a stubborn bag of crisps. (If all else fails, with those, he just stabs holes in the bags the nearest pointy implement, and thanks his lucky stars the companies are so cheap they fill the things half with air, because he doesn’t even have to worry about breaking any crisps in the process.)

Maybe it’s a bit stupid. Tim means well, after all, and he _does_ keep the teasing to a minimum, and Martin appreciates that, really!

It’s just. Aggravating, sometimes. Hearing another offer. (He’s a grown man. He should be able to handle these things himself.)

And even on good days, when Martin has himself in-line enough to feel fond and appreciative as he _should_ rather than angry—even on ones his smile is genuine and not just plastered on—even then it’s just. Well.

It’s unnecessary, is all.

-

Jon has trouble with his hands too, Martin knows. He’s been vaguely aware of it for years now, since sometime after Jon joined the research department, in the same way that he’s been vaguely aware of Rosie’s trick knee and Adam-from-filing’s rock collection and Sasha’s troubles with balance and Thalia-from-Artifact-Storage’s flower garden and Tim’s insomnia—in a fuzzy background sense, as one of a few details-to-remember-about-this-person.

The awareness grows a little less fuzzy after he transfers to the Archives (as does his awareness of Sasha’s balance issues and Tim’s _incredibly_ well-concealed insomnia), just because, well—it’s a lot more obvious when it’s right in front of his face.

(And, okay, maybe he’s noticed, in these close quarters, that Jon’s nice to look at. Maybe that helps, just a bit. Makes him notice a little more than he otherwise might. Maybe. Whatever. Sue him. The point is—)

It’s harder to miss, now, just how _often_ Jon wrings his hands when he thinks no one’s looking. And the way he always grimaces as he does it, like it hurts more than it helps. (Except when he scowls like he wants to chop the damn things clean off.)

And the way he cracks his knuckles all the time, seemingly absentmindedly, without batting an eye, which. Martin can’t fathom how. There’s no way that crunching sound isn’t painful. He can hear it clear across the room.

And the way he drops things—not _often_ , per se, but in a way that reminds Martin acutely of the phrase _when it rains, it pours_.

And—other things. The water bottle he caught Jon opening with his shirt wrapped round his hand, the packet of crisps he saw him stab open with a pen, the _pen_ he saw him open with his teeth.

After the pen incident—which Martin takes to affectionately calling the Pencident, to distinguish it from the Other Pen Incident, which occurred _very_ early on and involved him misplacing Jon’s favorite pen and was the only time Jon ever actually _shouted_ at him—a few things click tentatively into place. He doesn’t know for certain, because Jon hasn’t ever really said and Martin’s _far_ from an expert, but—arthritis? Certainly possible as an explanation. Maybe even probable.

In any case, the important thing to remember is that Jon’s hands are probably more than a simple nuisance.

So Martin remembers.

-

Martin takes to making tea when Jon’s hands seem to be giving him particular trouble.

There’s no pre-set alarms for this, no buzzing phone, but there’s a routine to it all the same, well-ingrained even _before_ the Pencident.

Martin notices Jon wring his hands for the eight hundredth time, or drop a tape recorder for the third, or twist his face in a particular kind of annoyed discomfort as he works the lid off an old cardboard box, and looks away before Jon can notice him noticing. Then he works his way to a reasonable stopping point in whatever task he’s been set. Then he checks his phone, half-pretending it’s buzzed, half-genuinely wanting to know the time. And then he stands, walks to the breakroom, and makes everyone tea. And then he hands out the mugs, setting Jon’s a little ways away from the edge of his desk.

He’s not sure if it helps, exactly. (After the Pencident, he’s even less so.) But he hopes it does.

He hopes.

-

The first holiday season in the Archives, Martin (after much deliberation) gifts Jon a pair of fingerless gloves. (Plain black, soft fabric, no awful seams, at least that he can _see_. The most unremarkable-but-comfortable pair he’s able to find for a price that doesn’t break the bank—because he _likes_ Jon, sure, and wants to get him something nice, but he’s also got bills to pay and contrary to popular belief he _is_ actually rather practical where and when it matters.)

When Jon opens them, he decides against mentioning that he’s heard they’re sometimes helpful for joint pain. (Jon probably already knows. It’s only going to make Martin sound stupid. And overbearing. And a host of other things besides, definitely probably.) Instead he babbles something inane about it being pretty cold in the Archives and Jon always in layers and then makes himself scarce.

He tries not to worry too much about whether Jon’s actually maybe secretly the sort of person who _hates_ fingerless gloves, whether he finds them too unprofessional, whether he hates the way they feel even when they’re nearly seamless, the way some people can’t stand toe socks and _Martin_ can’t stand those sweaters with the holes in the thumbs.

Instead, he goes off to find Tim and Sasha and deliver their gifts. (A fidgety gear sort of thing for Tim, because he’s always losing his obnoxiously colored Tangles and accidentally flinging pencils across the room, and fancy biscuits for Sasha, because—well. She likes fancy biscuits. And these ones in particular she’s been unable to find the last few years, so…?)

Worrying about whether they’ll like them is almost enough to shut off the worrying about Jon’s reaction. Or rather, lack thereof.

(Almost.)

-

Jon doesn’t wear the gloves the following workday, or the one after that. The one after _that_ , Martin forces himself to stop wondering about it. Jon’s obviously thrown them in the back of his closet, or maybe a donation bin somewhere, or maybe just a _bin_.

And that’s fine. He’s well within his rights to do so. Martin needs to stop caring about it.

-

Martin stops caring about it.

-

Several weeks later, Martin pops in to drop off morning tea and Jon is, inexplicably, wearing a very familiar pair of gloves.

Martin’s chest does something funny at the sight.

-

Martin drops his phone.

Martin drops his phone and doesn’t even realize until it’s too late, and when he _does_ realize he almost wants to laugh, because it’s. Really, it’s predictable, isn’t it? Butterfingers Martin, stupid, _clumsy_ Martin, of _course_ he dropped his phone, he’s always doing that, always, all the time, so of _course_ it would happen now, of _course_ it would get him trapped in his flat and probably killed by an evil worm lady.

Of course.

-

Martin struggles with the can opener. It’s been a bit obnoxious for last...who knows how many months, now, and he just hasn’t been able to afford a replacement (and when he _has_ he’s forgotten about it, and when he’s _remembered_ he’s been unable to forget that it isn’t that bad really, anyone else could probably manage it, it’s just him that’s the problem).

But this is all he’s got, is canned things. (Because he was too _stupid_ to remember to get the shopping done before all of this, because of course he was, so he’s fast run out of perishables and found himself down to a mass of peaches and some green beans and two very precious tins of ravioli he’s saving for—later.)

So he keeps using the can opener. It’s never failed on him yet, and he doesn’t expect it ever will, it’s just— _annoying_.

It’s annoying.

But it’s _what he’s got_ , so he swipes his sweaty, faintly-aching hands on his shirt and tries again.

-

Martin wrings his hands a lot in the days after Prentiss, living in the Archives. Not because they hurt, or even because they’re being passively stubborn, but just—for something to _do_ with them. There’s a lot of empty time, after-hours. (There was a lot of empty time in his flat, too.)

He takes to making more tea than he probably should, after everyone goes home (and forgetting to drink most of it until it’s gone horribly cold, and then drinking it anyway because the thought of so much _waste_ is more revolting than the tea).

It doesn’t help as much as he hopes it will, so he takes to tidying up instead. His desk, first, but it doesn’t work, he gets distracted, winds up reading, winds up working, and then by the time he’s done it’s a worse mess than before.

So he starts tidying the shared spaces instead. The floor, the nearby shelves, the breakroom. Calls it a favor to the others, a favor to Paul, because he said once the basement gives him the creeps.

Paul still always gives the Archives a cursory sweep— _in case Elias is watching_ , he says early on, with very faint humor in his voice, and Martin laughs but Paul doesn’t—but he never tidies after Martin, which is gratifying, and he sometimes stays to chat for a moment, have some tea, which is—it’s. It’s really nice. Martin appreciates it so much sometimes he thinks he might cry. He pulls out the good biscuits instead, and asks Paul how the woodworking’s been going.

-

Sometimes, after Paul leaves, Martin goes back to tidying. Everything’s done and fine and perfectly nice, of course, but he can usually find something extra, if he wants. (When he wakes up after nights like those—deep-clean nights, he takes to thinking of them as—his hands are often just a little more stubborn than usual. A little more inclined to curl, and to tug faintly about the joints when he lays them flat. It’s fine, though. A minor nuisance at best, and _much_ better than sitting there thinking about worms for hours on end.)

-

Some nights, though. Some nights there’s nothing to tidy, some nights there’s just scrubbing the counter over and over and over again, and that’s not really busy work, at least not in the sense he wants. It doesn’t occupy his mind, keep it away from worms.

So nights like _those_ he gives up on tidying, gives up on tea, and heads back to the cot.

And some of those nights he sits there and wrings his hands until they complain and thinks about worms _anyway_ , sure. But at least he does so in a safer room, and with a blanket, and without making the breakroom smell horribly of disinfectant the next day.

And _other_ nights he’s got enough sense to do something else besides sit there and worry. Like sit there and worry and try to read, or—better still—sit there and worry and try to _write_.

Sometimes it even works! He scribbles things down as they pop into his head, scrawls alternative phrasings, works out possible rhymes and even _meter_ when he’s feeling particularly fancy, because that’s more a challenge and requires more brain than free verse, if only because—self-imposed rules.

Martin writes about life outside the Institute, mostly, like he always has. When the usual well runs dry, though, he turns to life inside it instead. The quiet of the storage room, the squeak of the cot, the lingering threat of worms. His coworkers. His boss. (And, one _very_ low evening, his mother.)

He ends up scrapping most of what he writes, most of the time. Filling the wastebin with mounds of crumpled paper, wearing out the bindings of his notebooks. Staining his fingers with ink, once or twice, when he uses his one very nice pen on a night he can’t stop crossing things out. (The same night he tries to write about his mother—completely coincidentally, of course. He throws the pen out with the paper, that night, and has to rescue it from the bin the next morning.)

Sometimes, though.

Sometimes he keeps a line or two. Sometimes as much as a whole stanza. Sometimes just a title.

Sometimes not even that. (Usually not even that.)

It varies.

-

Martin wakes one morning with a discarded line from the night before stuck in his head. It turns circles all day, round and round, rephrasing itself over and over and over until it _clicks_ and it rings and it sounds right. And then it repeats, from time to time.

By lunch it’s repeating a _lot_. Almost on a loop.

By early afternoon, Martin thinks he’d quite like to write it down. Maybe if he _does_ it’ll shut up and let him focus. (Maybe, if he does, it’ll look as nice on the page as it sounds in his head. And maybe he’ll get to know what comes next.)

But there’s no time, not a single spare moment the whole day long, between the research and the filing and the phone calls which now replace his feet-on-the-ground excursions and mild acts of thievery. There’s barely even time for _tea_. (He could, he supposes, rush the tea and find a few spare moments to scrounge up some scratch paper and jot it down—but tea isn’t meant to be rushed, and anyway he doesn’t know where any of his pens are.)

So he doesn’t write it down. Just keeps going, keeps moving, researching and filing and putting on his Friendly Professional voice all the way up until end-of-day, when everyone’s gone home and he’s retreated to the storage room, and finally, finally, _finally_ there’s time and he’s got a pen and he can write it _down_ —

And his hands are being annoying. He just—picks up the pen, wraps his fingers round it, and they’re annoying.

And that makes him not want to write after all.

Not because it’ll hurt too much, because it _won’t_. (It’ll hardly hurt in the _first_ place, much less go on and do so _too much_.) No, it’s more...the juxtaposition of peaceful words and irritable hands, in itself. It feels wrong. He doesn’t like it.

...Which is, of course, very _stupid_ , so he’s all set to go ahead and write the dumb line anyway, juxtaposition be _damned_ , when he spots a spare tape recorder, lying on a nearby box, and he thinks—

_Oh._

And he stares at it for a long moment, deliberating. Then decides—who cares. He’s already stolen a frankly alarming number of fire extinguishers, and requisitioned a corkscrew, and—some other things. What’s a tape recorder, after all that? (What’s a tape recorder, really, in the grand scheme of things? He could be eaten by worms _tomorrow_.)

So Martin snags the recorder, and pockets it, and does a quick check round the Archives to be _sure_ everyone’s gone and Jon’s not just hiding in his office again—they are and he isn’t—and then he heads back to the storage room and closes the door and sits on the cot and—

Dictates, instead of writing.

And it’s...well, it’s not quite the same? It’s a bit different, feels sort of odd and a bit of a cop-out, really, if he’s being honest, like a kind of shortcut he hasn’t earned, and it doesn’t help that the rest of the words sort of come pouring out, after he rambles through a few options, and it’s terribly easy to record over it all once that’s done, with everything in the right order. A little too easy. (Part of poetry, Martin has always felt, is wrestling with the words until they sound halfway decent. If it’s _effortless_ , you’re missing half the experience.)

But at the same time...well. Well? It’s. Also sort of nice, really. The way the words trip out, the way they taste on his tongue. And listening to the playback is—it’s not as terrible as he expects. His voice isn’t so bad. And the tape itself’s got that sort of...crackle to it. That pop-and-hiss, from time to time, the background whirring underneath it all. It’s nice.

It’s got a sort of...charm to it, really.

Makes it imperfect. Makes it okay.

So he keeps using the recorder, even when his hands _aren’t_ being a nuisance. And it’s nice. It’s good.

-

Until the Prentiss and worms and Gertrude’s body and the dust clearing and returning to document storage to gather his things, including all his little poem-tapes, and scouring the room to find the missing one, the one he’s been working on for over a week now and has _nearly_ got right—

Only to turn up nothing.

Forty-five minutes’ searching later, he’s forced to conclude that it's just—gone.

Well. Okay. That’s—fair, he supposes. That’s fair. Life or death, he thinks. More important legacies.

So—

Never mind that then.

-

In the days that follow, Martin goes back to writing cramped poetry in worn notebooks and on scraps of paper.

Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it isn’t. (Sometimes his hands hurt when he puts down the pencil. Sometimes they don’t.) Mostly it’s just sort of okay. (Mostly they’re just a bit empty.)

That’s life, he supposes.

-

In the weeks that follow, Martin makes a lot of tea, and tries not to dwell on the contrast between the worm-bitten fingers accepting the mugs and the unblemished ones handing them over. He succeeds, mostly, through sheer stubbornness.

( _No_ , it’s not fair, and _yes_ , maybe it is a little bit his fault, but it’s also _understandable_ and fine. And for the best, anyway. _Someone_ has to make the tea, and Tim’s still having too much difficulty gripping things to hold the kettle, and Jon’s not keen on the walk from the office to the breakroom these days. Not that he ever _was_ terribly keen, but, well. He brings his cane a lot more often than he used to. _Probably_ because of the corkscrew, and _yes_ , that’s a whole other thing, but better he’s in more pain more often than _completely_ _infested with worms_ , and he knows for a _fact_ Jon agrees, so.)

(So.)

Martin makes more tea.

He hopes it helps, but knows it probably doesn’t, because he usually ends up collecting their still-full mugs again at end-of-day, long-since gone cold, sometimes with flies in.

He pours them down the breakroom sink and contemplates new flavors. Jon has Opinions on bergamot, he knows, but Tim doesn’t, does he? Maybe if….

(At least Sasha usually drinks hers. At least there's that.)

-

In the months that follow, Martin drafts long letters to his mother, earnest and heartfelt, spilling affections and anxieties alike with reckless abandon.

He never finishes them. Only crumples them up and tosses them in the bin.

Sometimes he writes new ones, right after—cheerful and shallow, in his best penmanship, sharing sparse details about his life since he wrote last and asking after her general activities and wishing her well—and sends those off.

Sometimes he waits a few days first.

(It doesn’t matter. She never reads them anyway.)

(He knows this, but it doesn’t stop him feeling guilty.)

-

Martin bandages Jon’s wrist with no trouble at all, then marches him to A&E and sits in the waiting room until he returns with several stitches.

He twists his hands in knots the whole time he sits there, but they don’t shake until he’s back at work, in the breakroom.

He makes himself and Tim a cup of tea to steady them (Sasha’s gone out).

Tim doesn’t drink his.

-

Martin takes Jon to lunch again. He watches Jon struggle with the chopsticks for a bit, pretends not to notice, and then bites the bullet and asks if he wants a fork.

Jon looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. Then says he’s not going to ask for one, but notably doesn’t say no, so Martin fishes his spare disposable out of his bag, sets it on the table.

Jon blinks at it. Wants to know was Martin just _carrying that all day_.

Martin cracks a joke about having stolen it from table three a minute ago. Then remembers who he’s talking to and hurriedly explains that _yes_ , of course he was carrying it all day, and it pays to be prepared, and all that.

“...For fork emergencies,” Jon says.

“Exactly,” Martin says with a grin, and just barely stops himself from babbling something inane about how _you never know when you’re going to need to stab someone_ , because. Corkscrews. Maybe a sore spot.

Jon rolls his eyes, but he’s got that twitch at the corner of his mouth that says he’s amused more than annoyed, so. That’s pretty good. (Martin’s maybe half-giddy about it. Sue him.)

Several minutes later, rather abruptly, Jon thanks him. For the fork.

Martin nods, opens his mouth to tell him _of course, no problem_ , but oh, Jon’s talking again.

“Bit uncooperative today,” he says, with a vague gesture at nothing in particular which Martin worries over for a solid three seconds before realizing Jon’s indicating the hand _doing the gesture_ , and not actually _him_ , it’s not actually an insult. Then another two seconds as Jon shrugs awkwardly. “You know how it is.”

Martin does not, in fact, know how it is, because Jon’s never really actually _talked_ about this sort of thing before, except in vague references to exhaustion and a bad leg. But he supposes he can see how Jon might expect him to have a better sense of it than some? Knowing what he knows now about Martin’s family situation. Though his mother’s illness is rather different to Jon’s, from what he can tell, from what he’s guessed—but then there _is_ overlap, he supposes, in the general experiences, and this in particular is actually—although of course it’s very different in that—

He’s overthinking things. Jon’s waiting for a response. Jon’s waiting for a response and Martin can’t think what he’s supposed to say. If this were his mother—he knows the right words for this sort of conversation with his mother, but this _isn’t_ his mother, this is Jon, so—

Martin shrugs and nods and says nothing at all.

And Jon nods back, and looks away, and eats his lunch.

And that’s that.

(The rest of the meal is quiet, but not a bad quiet, Martin doesn’t think. At least. He hopes not a bad quiet.)

-

Martin and Tim hold hands in the corridors, as they run and run and run and _run_. (And walk, sometimes, and rest, because the corridors go on forever and they’ve been there _forever_ , and adrenaline can only last so long.)

Martin’s pretty sure Tim thinks he’s the one doing the holding, and, okay, and he’s not entirely wrong, but only because Martin is allowing it, because Tim has a—a _thing_ about this sort of thing. (There’s a term for it, it’s on the tip of his tongue, skating half-formed on the edges of his mind, all concept and no consonants—Tim has the—the—the—)

Tim squeezes tight and doesn’t let go, is the point, not even when Martin’s palm goes all sweaty, and he keeps running onward and doesn’t stop and doesn’t lose it and even manages a few very angry jokes.

Martin doesn’t let go either, not even when his fingers start aching from clasping so tight. Not even when they start to go a little bit numb. Not even when that numbness starts to hurt all over again, in fits and starts when he pays too much attention to it (when Tim squeezes again).

They keep holding on and not letting go all the way until they finally spill out of that Thing’s corridors, and then a little longer after that, and then—

It’s very clumsy, extricating himself from Tim. (Tim does most of the work.) Martin’s fingers feel like rubber, for a minute, and then like they’ve been smashed with a hammer that’s been coated in acid.

When his circulation returns to normal, the ache lingers.

It should probably be annoying—normally would be annoying—but it isn’t.

-

Jon is missing, Sasha is missing, Tim is furious and spiraling, and Martin’s hands are absolutely useless at fixing any of those problems so he makes them useful in other ways.

He makes tea that Tim does not drink, he does filing, and he records statements.

The button on the tape recorder is physically hard to press. Which feels appropriate, even if it's embarrassing. (It _shouldn’t_ want to click on for him. He’s not Jon. It’s not his job. And—more reasonably, a little less ridiculously—it’s _right_ that reading out the record of someone’s most horrible experiences should be difficult in all respects.

-

Jon is back and his hand is badly burned. Martin watches him navigate the world one-handed and irritable, and doesn’t offer help.

He re-stocks the first aid kit they keep in the breakroom instead. More painkillers, better bandages. Some aloe.

He tells Jon they’re there after a while, when it seems relevant in conversation, and leaves it at that.

-

Martin’s no stranger to waking up with grouchy hands, a little rude about the knuckles, like there’s little stones in the joints, but lately it’s been happening more and more.

He thinks maybe it’s because of how he’s been gripping his blankets when he sleeps. (Like in the old days, sleeping with one hand curled round the corkscrew under his pillow, waking with stiff fingers. Except now there’s no corkscrew, just blankets.)

He ignores it, every time. And it goes away, every time, within the hour.

-

There’s a slow morning. Jon’s back again. Looks like hell.

Martin’s tempted to ask if he’s okay, and does, before he can think better of it.

Jon tells him he’s fine, seeming somewhere between uncomfortable and irritated and _maybe_ surprised? Martin’s not really sure. _Lot of statements_ , he says, and then, _and the arthritis, I suppose._

Martin nods, asks if Jon needs anything. Jon mutters something about a Nikola’s head on a pike, and it takes Martin a moment to grasp that this is, at least in part, probably a _joke_.

Before he can laugh, Jon’s already straightening and adding _or the files for case number—_

Martin bites back the weird mix of desire-to-laugh and desire-to-hug and desire-to-stab-a-mannequin that rises at the belated understanding that part of the joke is that Jon is actually being quite serious. He does none of these things, and instead nods, and shuffles off to find the relevant files, and makes a mental note to prepare some tea, afterwards, to drop off with them.

-

Martin struggles to work the lighter.

It hurts his thumb, both the skin and the joint at the base. And it doesn’t even budge, the first time he tries. Or the second. And then won’t _click properly_ the third, or the fourth, or the fifth, and for a heart-stopping moment he thinks it might not work at all, thinks the whole meticulously designed and painstakingly hidden plan they’ve spent _weeks_ fine-tuning the details of—the whole damn thing might just crumble here and now, and all because he’s too _stupid_ to work the lighter and been too _stupid_ to forsee the problem in the first place and go out and buy something with an easier _switch_ —and the others are going to be mad and Elias is going to still be around and he’s going to keep hurting people and probably killing them and it’s going to be all his _fault_ and—

The lighter clicks on. The little flame dances, and for a moment he just watches, transfixed and more than half-terrified it’ll blink out—

But it doesn’t.

So he blinks, himself, and straightens his spine and sets to work.

-

Martin’s thumb feels a bit raw, when Elias leaves, from pressing down so hard on the lighter, and it is, he’s distantly aware, probably going to ache round the joints tomorrow.

That’s fine.

It doesn’t matter.

The job’s done.

-

Martin has the very small good fortune of being empty-handed when he finds out about the Unknowing. About Tim-and-Jon-and-Daisy.

The good fortune feels incongruous. That anything should feel lucky when the others are dead (not dead)—that there should be so stark a silence, that the news should arrive absent the sound of a teacup shattering on the floor—

Martin fills the silence with questions and answers until both he and Basira are fully up-to-date on their respective sides of the situation.

Then he gathers his phone and his bag with unsteady hands and goes to the hospital.

-

Martin is holding something when he gets the call about his mother. It’s the phone, of course.

He does not drop it.

He wants to drop _himself_ , to find a chair and collapse into it, but the trouble with that—the trouble with that is he’s already sitting.

He listens. He asks the questions he is supposed to ask. He accepts the condolences he is supposed to accept. He hangs up the phone, when it is time for that.

He thinks, for a brief moment, of turning it off. It would be nice, inasmuch as anything can be _nice_ right now. The promise of undisturbed quiet. It would be….

(Martin has not turned off his phone for longer than a few minutes at a time in years. He’s never so much as put it on silent. Vibrate, at most, and _usually_ the ringer, and _damn_ the funny looks because they don’t matter, because what if the care home calls?)

He leaves it on and tucks it in his pocket instead. (After all, what if the hospital...?)

-

Martin begins gathering and filling out paperwork the next day. He does it by hand, in his best penmanship, and his knuckles begin to ache a few minutes in, but he keeps going. There’s so much more to do.

-

Martin has marginally mixed feelings about the work he does for Peter Lukas. Not on a moral level or anything (it’s not as though the work is particularly sketchy, and on the whole it seems to be _preventing_ more harm than it’s causing)—

So no, it’s not that. The work is fine, him doing it is fine, it’s all for the best, really, he doesn’t care.

No, it’s just. The _sort_ of work he’s doing—most of the day, anyway, when he’s not hurrying off to settle a workplace dispute before Peter _intervenes_ —the little administrative tasks, they’re sort of neverending?

Which is fine, really. Makes things a bit repetitive, sure, but Martin’s never minded that terribly much, and it’s nice, and it’s quiet, and there’s no worms or shouting or crying or anything. So it’s—it’s good. Really. He likes it, even. It’s sort of soothing, in its way.

It’s just—a lot of clicking, and typing. Makes his hands complain, sometimes, a bit louder than they used to.

But it’s fine. He gets used to it.

He’s had worse.

-

It is very cold in the Lonely. The chill seeps into his skin and settles in his joints, and then they ache.

And then they don’t.

-

Jon takes Martin’s hand and leads him out of the Lonely. (Martin thinks a little bit about spiraling corridors, but mostly—mostly about what he’s Seen.)

-

One day, in the safehouse, Jon makes an odd comment. Not rude, just—odd. About Martin’s hands. About them being difficult.

And that’s—Martin’s not realized Jon’s ever noticed, really? And isn’t sure he likes discovering he’s been _wrong_.

And then Jon goes on and implies, casually—in a genuine sense, not the sort of forced casualness he tries on, occasionally, like a suit tailored for a man several sizes smaller, if such a thing is even possible—he implies a comparison to his own hands, as though—as though—?

It doesn’t make sense.

And Jon continues to follow the trail of conversation down a few winding paths, as Jon is wont to do, completely oblivious to Martin’s growing confusion—

Until he isn’t, anymore, and then seems confused himself. And then incredulous. And then understanding, and then a little sad, which doesn’t make any _sense_ to Martin but there it is—

Except no it’s anger now instead, oh dear, oh _fuck_ , Martin’s gone and made some kind of _mistake_ —

But instead of snapping at him, or rolling his eyes, or—or walking _away_ , Jon just. Takes a moment. Takes a breath. Does something funny with his face that Martin can’t quite read.

And then starts talking again, explaining in a very reasonable tone that Martin’s hands are stubborn—as though Martin doesn’t already _know_ —and that there’s likely a reason for that, of some kind, and that it’s very possible the reason is, in fact—

Martin does not frown as Jon lays out the observations and the evidence. He keeps his face blank and listens. He doesn’t believe a single word.

He says as much, as politely as he can, when there’s a break in Jon’s monologue. It’s not anything serious, he explains. He had an injury once. (No need to explain how it occurred. He’s fuzzy on the details himself.) And he’s always done a lot of writing and typing and things. Overuse, that’s all it is.

Jon disagrees, a little less politely. _No_ , he says, _no_ , and _actually_ —

And then he’s going on again, making more comparisons, and Martin—doesn’t know what to do with them.

Because Jon has _arthritis_ , and Martin’s thing is—not _remotely_ the same. Hardly bears mentioning.

But here Jon is anyway, saying that no, actually, hands aren’t supposed to be quite that stubborn, and they aren’t supposed to hurt quite that often, and Martin’s experiences do actually count.

And Martin. Sort of wants to cry?

Because.

Because all he’s ever been told is that he should buck up and get over it.

(Get a little more discipline. It’s not that bad, stop whinging, smarten up, write neater, don’t open that water bottle with your teeth you’re going to damage them and also that’s _disgusting_ , and you should open that jar yourself, I certainly can’t do it, look at me, and what are you doing complaining to me in the _first_ place, me of all people, why my hands haven’t stopped shaking in years, and I’m always in pain and you don’t hear _me_ complaining, and you’re young and you’re fine now _get over yourself_ —)

And now here’s Jon.

Here’s Jon, who has bona-fide arthritis in his thirties (and has done since at least his _twenties_ ) and is always in pain to some degree or other and needs a cane most every day now and clearly struggles a lot more than Martin does and handles it a _lot_ better—

Here’s Jon saying that actually, actually, Martin doesn’t _have_ to just get over it. That it does count. That, if Martin wanted, he could probably use some of the words he’s always known better than to even think of touching.

Here’s Jon saying that he’s thought as much for _years_. Here’s Jon saying he thought Martin _knew_. Here’s—

Martin doesn’t cry.

He snaps a little instead, because—Jon’s wrong. Jon’s wrong and this is—

It’s not right. It’s not right and it’s not—

He doesn’t like it.

And he doesn’t like that apparently he’s made such a _fuss_ over the years that he’s gone and given Jon the _wrong idea_ —

Martin takes a little space, after that. (Not falling back to the Lonely entirely, but retreating to another room for a while. Talking to Jon less over the next few days.)

Jon lets him.

-

They talk again later and Jon uses different words and Martin—

Tries to listen. _Does_ listen.

Tries to absorb what Jon is saying, really consider it. Does, a little.

And maybe—

Maybe Jon isn’t. Entirely wrong.

Martin doesn’t feel right using...some of those words. (Most of them, really. Maybe even all of them.) But it doesn’t feel entirely wrong to say that he could if he _wanted_.

And that’s—

That’s something.

Nicer, though….

Nicer is that Jon doesn’t make a thing of it, after that second talk. He lets it go. (It’s a relief, and Martin could kiss him for it—and maybe, he thinks. Maybe he will.)

-

Martin realizes, later, that Jon’s taken to bringing him tea when he sets his notebook aside.

It occurs to him, a few seconds after this realization, that the habit isn’t new.

Or. Not _that_ new, anyway.

Jon’s been doing it since before their...conversation. Before either of those conversations. Since...sometime after they first got to the safehouse. (Martin thinks about it a little longer, tracing back over things, and concludes that Jon has probably been doing it since Martin first picked up a pen again, after the Lonely. However long that took. He’s not quite sure, himself.)

And he’s not said anything about it, either. Just...done it. Quietly, unobtrusively.

And that’s….

Well.

If Martin maybe cries a little, realizing—

Well.

Jon’s already gone off in the next room and doesn’t see. And anyway none of the tears spill in the tea, so it only tastes the usual amount of terrible, _so_ —

So it’s fine.

The only trouble is, Martin thinks, drying his eyes. That now he really, really wants to write another poem. The hot mug has helped some, he thinks (hopes, knows), but—it’s one of those days. His hands are still clicky, still tired. The relief-and-fuzzy-feeling probably won’t last him through another writing session.

But he still—he really wants to _do_ something with all this— _this_. (It’s got to go _somewhere_ , so—)

…Maybe, he thinks. Maybe there’s a tape recorder? Lying round somewhere? (There must be. He’s with Jon.)

Martin smiles, terribly fond, and goes off to find one.

**Author's Note:**

> jon companion piece will presumably be arriving at Some Point but alas for i make no promises as to when
> 
> in the meantime, hope y'all enjoyed, & as always y'can find me on tumblr at arodrwho


End file.
